The U. S’s morally repugnant decision to send Ukraine cluster munitions – on your dime
I’ll never forget many years ago, lingering outside a disheveled medical clinic – more like a soiled clay hut with a few cots and a shelf of rudimentary medication – when the mother of a small boy, barely six years old, rushed inside screaming. Not far away, her child had picked up what he thought was a toy dug into the earth. The rusted yellow Transformers-like object was an unexploded cluster munition that detonated the moment his tiny fingers graced the metal. His legs were gone, his body slumped forward in agony as shrapnel sliced his abdomen, and blood dripped from his dust-caked eyelashes. I will never forget how he yelped like a bird too shocked to cry, as his sun-golden hair fell into his wide eyes as villagers held his hand, trying to make him comfortable before he passed away in a slow and excruciating death. I will never forget how his delicate-boned mother wailed into the burning daylight, slamming her body into the hard ground in agony, so hard she could not breathe.
I challenge anyone who supports the use of cluster munitions in the context of any war, anywhere, to walk into a makeshift hospital in a far-flung country such as Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan or Iraq and observe the impoverished children who have lost their arms and legs and eyesight and hearing, along with the piercing of their internal organs. I dare you to watch these tiny, confused souls struggle for every breath. Mind you; these are the ones fortunate enough to survive. And before you leave, stare into their broken mother or father’s eyes and reflect on whether this is a winning proposition or anything akin to taking the moral high ground.
What is incredibly searing and hard to wrap my head around now is that my tax dollars are paying for the deployment of such vile weapons to be used on the Ukraine battlefield long after we collectively decided these must be stopped. And again, the United States will bear a heavy responsibility for taking innocent lives long after the conflict has concluded. Last week, the Biden administration – as part of its latest $800 million weapons package – sent its first shipment of cluster munitions to Ukraine and the persistent demand of President Zelensky, claiming it would continue to supply the armaments from its abundant stockpile until suppliers could catch up to Ukraine’s dearth of conventional artillery shells.
The 155-millimeter shell, which carries 72 armor-piercing, soldier-killing bomblets, can be fired from 20 miles away or dropped from aircraft, scattering the casings over a large area. As the bomblets spread over a vast area, they also threaten non-combatants. Even more troubling is the notion that, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), around ten to forty percent of the munitions fail – meaning they lie dormant and ready to explode for decades after their launch. This is why thousands of small, unexploded grenades can lie on the ground for years or decades before someone, usually a child, accidentally sets them off.
In fact, children living in crushing poverty are typically the most impacted by cluster munitions – often drawn to their bright colors or resemblance to a windmill or robotic toy, an apparent novelty for those in the war-soaked backcountry. As such bomblets come in varied shapes and sizes, they will impact the human body differently, rendering far more damage to a child’s smaller frame. In addition to scars or burns, metal fragments or shrapnel will create chronic pain for the rest of their lives. This will further cast them into poverty, given their now striking, lifelong disabilities. Data from the Cluster Munition Monitor shows that civilians account for 97 percent of all casualties related to cluster munitions.
As it stands, the U.S. possesses a no-longer-used stockpile of cluster bombs termed dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, or DPICMs – which have been primarily used in the past as a deterrent around the demilitarized zone to stop North Korean forces from attacking the South. The U.S-made bombs disperse submunitions designed to explode on impact, decimating everything in the vicinity of several football fields. The Pentagon last used the weapons in Iraq from 2003 to 2006 and claims a dud rate of less than three percent. However, these were fully phased out of use more than seven years ago.
Furthermore, cluster munitions are fervently outlawed by even the closest of America’s allies.
In 2008, governments worldwide adjourned and signed on to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, banning their use, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention and transfer while also committing signees to clear known contaminated areas and provide medical care and economic support to victims. While 123 nations have adopted the convention, the United States, Russia and Ukraine are among those that have not.
Since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022, both sides have already used cluster bombs with chillingly high failure rates – with Ukraine relying on Turkish-provided munitions until the U.S. stepped in. According to Human Rights Watch, this has already led to dozens of civilian deaths and serious injuries.
I shudder when I hear the morally flawed argument that we should provide (and Ukraine should use) such bombs because Russia is already doing so. Well, under my tax dollar expenditure, it is not okay. Is it acceptable to use suicide bombers because terrorist organizations fighting the U.S. do so? Is it okay to ram planes into buildings in revenge for the attacks of September 11? Absolutely not.
The White House can defend its decision all it wants. Still, there is nowhere in the world, under no circumstance, that justifies the use of such hideousness – which so happens to be supported by the war-mongering types among the Republican Party, too.
I can’t help but notice the hypocrisy. In 2017, former U.S. ambassador to the United States and now the USAID administrator, Samantha Power, took to Twitter to express upset over then-President Trump walking away from the Bush-era commitment to phase out the munitions. Since Biden’s announcement on the transfer, it has been radio silence. Furthermore, former Press Secretary Jen Psaki previously stated that Russia’s use of such weapons potentially constitutes a war crime.
And while Ukraine is a sovereign nation that can choose what weapons to use to defend against Russia’s aggression and incursion into its territory, the United States can also exercise its discretion regarding what weapons to supply.
The fact that our leaders have chosen to share such a hideous weapon known for its indiscriminate carnage – which you and I paid for even as the majority of nations have outlawed – is beyond disgusting. No potential short-term gains are worth the damage inflicted upon civilians for generations to come. And that burden is now on us too, those who foot the bill to fund the pockets of weapons manufacturers and politicians who I am sure probably do sleep well at night in their faraway mansions. After all, it’s not their children or grandchildren who will suffer as they delight in a protracted payday.
Just how low we have sunk regarding support.
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